Polishing Turds

There's loads of top 10 lists of the worst video game box art on the internet, but what I want to know is what's going on in the peoples minds that create/choose this 'art' to sell their game?
Now I'm no marketing wiz kid, but for people to buy things they have to desire it right? So I put this to you, who would desire any of the following?

Let's start with this lovely piece:

What's this all about and what's their talent exactly? Not box art I can tell you now.... and who the hell are Drake & Josh anyway?!

Lets move on... quickly!




It struck me while researching this that amongst all the awful illustrations was a huge amount of games with photos on the cover.

Tip number one then: Putting a photo on the cover does not a cool game make! In fact any photo on there creates an instant 'cheapo game' look for you.

See what I mean?



Ok so let's readdress the balance a little with an illustrated cover. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Black Belt!


As if the backgrounds used for all these cartridges wasn't bad enough, it's worrying that someone actually thought, 'you know what this needs? A dismembered leg'.
Actually this one goes against the grain as the actual game is not that bad.


Now stop me if I'm wrong but surely if you're trying to fob crap off onto people, you'd try to make it at least look attractive and enticing to trick them? Isn't that the premiss behind the tonnes of little gadgets that get released? The cheap DVD player that looks like a Wii and is even called 'Wee'. Or the cheap DS ripoffs, it looks like a DS but open it up and it's more Game & Watch than 'Touch Generation'.

My only conclusion can be that with game art maybe you really can't polish a turd... but you can still put your game in a box smeared with one.

Show us your favourite worst covers on the GAMEOV3R Forum